Mission: HOPE.

Why the mission: Humans historically have fostered separation, differences, tribalism, racism, sexism, nationalism, gingoism, and all kinds of conflict in we-isms and me-isms. Misguided loyalties and limited consciousness perpetuates competition, fear, and violence toward others as a means to solve ego-based perceived conflicts. Humans fight about ideas, not reality. Violence shows up everywhere in our culture: TV programs, video games, entertainment, literature, schools, workplaces, homes and constantly in the media. That paradigm is old. Its outdated. Perhaps we have had enough? Human consciousness is capable of better!

How the mission: So how do you change a paradigm? You don't fight against it because that only perpetuates it; you introduce a catalyst with the power to change/shift human consciousness. How? With a meme. Then you replicate that meme exponentially toward the tipping point and critical mass. (Meme in the sense of this project refers to a characteristic of a culture.)

What the mission: The meme I intend to introduce is a new tidal wave of HOPE. I have a plan for this project that will unfold in stages and I am calling upon you to help me initiate stage one. Stage one is to define hope by introducing the idea of hope as a personal and collective cultural project into a world that desperately needs it. Would you be willing to help me in this mission?

Your part in the mission: Your part is to answer the questions listed below and to send (confidentailly held) contact information and then stand at the ready (relaxed mode, of course) to assist with this project if asked. You can also help by passing this on to other leaders in their fields, contemporary heroes, spiritual guides, and well-known or visible personalities whom you think should be on board. Are you willing? If so, please answer the questions and mail me your responses.

Subject: HOPE

• How would you define hope?
• Is hope personal? Impersonal? Where does it come from?
• Is there such a thing as hope in action? If so, how does it come about and how do you recognize it?
• If you were out of hope, where would you go to find some?
• What advice would you give to someone who feels no hope?
• Is there hope for the world? Why do you say that?
• Is there hope for humanity? Why do you say that?
• Is there hope for the future? Why do you say that?
• Personally: Are you hopeful? Do you have hope? For what? Why?
• If you had to depict hope without words (say a photograph, drawing painting or something else visual, tangible, audible or otherwise) what would it be? What do think of when you think of hope? What does hope look like, feel like, sound like?
• If your assignment was to seek out and capture hope, where would you look? How would you keep it around?
• More thoughts on hope (optional):

Email your answers to: barbk@athenet.net

I thank you and the world thanks you!

Hope- The Vision, The Mission

A lifelong peacemaker, I accepted an invitation in the nineteen eighties from the founder of our local Sister City chapter to join her in establishing a sister city relationship with a city in the (then) Soviet Union. I became a member and later, an executive officer.

For the next two decades, I worked to promote citizen diplomacy and peace between Russians and Americans. Having grown up under the threat of nuclear war, it became important to make friends of the enemy. If the leaders of the superpowers didn't know how to behave well, we the people would demonstrate how civilized citizens behave toward each other for them.

We began with photography and posted a portrait photo exhibit of ordinary Russians... "Faces of the Enemy" in shows and galleries. The shocking discovery was that the communists, the enemy, the Russians that we had grown up to fear and loathe, looked just like us!

Our group began programs of educational exchanges: first between universities and later, high schools and grade schools; medical exchanges between doctors and hospitals; police department exchanges; business and industry exchanges; humanitarian and social program exchanges.

In 1999 I wrote a grant for USAID to fund a mission under the START II Treaty Cooperative Threat Reduction to establish the social infrastructure to support the construction of a chemical weapons decommissioning facility. And in 2000 that grant helped Russian and American citizens cooperate together in the mission to destroy weapons of mass destruction after their governments each built them to threaten death to the other.

My writing, artwork and humanitarian programs ever since have been in service to the creation of peace among the peoples of earth.

To create peace, people must first have hope. And that is the current mission. If you are sincerely interested in the mission and would like to play a role in "hope rising on the planet," send me a personal email and I will send you details.

Hope in the News

Opening the daily newspaper takes such an act of courage! One has to be willing to step into the world at large and all of its sorrow, negativity, inhumanity, despair and degradation in a breath-holding and sensationalized in-your-face format. Did you ever wish you could open the daily newspaper and be able to take a deep breath and instead of bad news, get a huge dose of HOPE? Me too. Now there is a way that you can..... Visit...http://www.goodnewsagency.org

Are YOU a messenger? A messenger of hope?

Hope is like breath; we need to inhale it really deeply once in awhile. Hope...

• Lubricates the soulMakes the world juicy
• Keeps the world friendly, not dangerous

Hope helps us know that...

• Things can get better
• Wonder is still alive
• We are valuable
• We are valued
• Darkness and despair can be arrested

Hope Messengers remind us...

• There are messengers of hope
• There is evidence that hope is alive
• These messengers alone are reason to hope

One only has to listen to world news to understand that all is not well on the planet...

• Violence and war are still used as solutions.
• Punishment and revenge are still very much alive.
• Evil still visits occasionally.
• Some cultural traditions are still negative and abusive.

Yet there are those who lean toward hope and enlightenment instead of death and destruction. Those who lean into hope are messengers.

There are reasons to keep hoping and to keep hope alive...

• There are people who are dedicated to making the world a better place
• They are out there making a difference day after day
• Sometimes "messengers" make a difference to thousands or more
• Some of them reach groups or communities
• Some reach one person at a time

In this "Hope Detective" space we will be...

• Arresting the darkness
• Looking for hope clues
• Collecting evidence and messages of hope
• Detecting those whose intention is to elevate humanity to a loftier expression
• Investigating those who call humanity to a higher incarnation of itself
• Reporting captures and victories
• Investigating Hope Scenes

We will be examining clues and finding evidence of...

• Human compassion
• Dedication
• Mercy
• Admirable action
• Inspiration
• Hope
• Contibutions to making the world a better place
• Messengers whose mission is to add hope to the global mind

I invite you to submit evidence to the Hope Detective of..

• Projects, education, inventions, ingenuities
• Music, art, conversations, contributions
• Publications, organizations, or other offerings

That...

• Build up instead of destroy
• Lift up instead of break down
• Love instead of hate
• Hope instead of despair
• Highlight compassion instead of indifference
• Foster involvement instead of apathy
• Promote inclusion instead of divisiveness
• Lead triumph instead of defeat
• Feature things and people who keep hope alive and well on this planet.

The Hopi (Hope-e) have said that this is the time and... "We are the ones we have been waiting for." By gathering together the messengers we create a circle of hope around the globe. With all that light shining on the planet, darkness will find no place to land!

Are YOU a messenger of hope?

Is your message evidence for hope?

Do you premeditate and perpetrate hope?

Do you run a hope ring?

Do you know of a "hope scene?"

Send a report!